Images
by Sindaheri
Summary: A glimpse of a person, a moment in time. A series of drabbles following the main quest, from midpoint to aftermath. Spoilers within.
1. Champion

**Disclaimer: **I make no claim to The Elder Scrolls game series, Oblivion, or any of the associated concepts or characters. I gain no profit from this work.

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**Champion**

She always smells like ashes. He knows she washes each morning while she stays at the temple, and wonders if Oblivion has forever sunk into her skin. He can see it behind her eyes, glimpses like reflected nightmares, when she is tired and her guard drops.

He knows he will ask her to face it again and again, until it is finally over. He knows she will do it without complaint, again and again. He hates himself for it, because he knows she doesn't.

He hates her for that, just a little, because each time it is harder to ask.


	2. Priest

**Priest**

She wonders if this is what it looks like when a man becomes a battleground. The circles beneath his eyes are so dark, she doubts even a year's uninterrupted rest would begin to erase them. His hands shake a little as he turns the pages, and she wonders whether it is with pain or desire.

She wants to burn the damned book, just so she can finally stop watching him torment himself with it. She knows she can't, because it is the key to victory.

She would kill each member of the Mythic Dawn ten times over, just for that.


	3. Heroes

**Heroes**

They both shine. She when she appears at strange hours, another impossible task accomplished. He when something finally makes sense, and another piece of the puzzle falls into place.

They both try to hide the cost of these small victories. He would help bear it, if they would let him, but both are too proud. Both of them would take it all onto themselves, if they could.

Sometimes, he wishes they were raw recruits instead of champion and heir. Then he could beat some sense into them.

Sometimes, he believes they'll make it, and promises himself he'll do it anyway.


	4. Interlude: Stolen

**Stolen**

It was her idea. No one else would be irreverent enough.

The heir tells of first learning magic, of apprentices' tricks they're all sure weren't really quite so innocent as he pretends.

The Blade tells soldier's tales, and after the first hour is willing to forget there's a lady at the table.

The champion tells of adventure, stories involving glittering ruins and odd mishaps with animated rats, and nothing touching on blood and death.

They drink ale, and pretend there is no war.

And then word comes of the gate outside Bruma, and the brief, stolen peace shatters like glass.


	5. Portal

**Portal**

The tug of the book as he binds himself to it makes him feel vaguely ill, tainted. It squirms beneath his skin like maggots. He tries to tell himself that this is all he feels, that it does not call to parts of himself he's kept long buried. He knows it's a lie.

She shoots him a smile over her shoulder as she steps through the portal. He thinks it's meant to be encouraging. It isn't, and he's sure the one he returns looks equally grim.

For a moment, he wonders if they are playing right into the enemy's hands.


	6. Paradise

**Paradise**

Paradise, she decides, is worse even than the wastes of Oblivion. That nightmare place, torn and violent and drenched with death, was at least honest. This place feels like every home she'd never had, until she spies the daedra.

Still, with Camoran's voice, all honeyed reason, whispering in the back of her mind, she almost falters.

She breathes a sigh of relief when she finds the torture chambers. Lovely though it may look, Paradise is, at its core, rotten. Still, she feels a twinge of regret when it shakes apart around her.

She tells herself it's pity for the fallen.


	7. Wait

**Wait**

He doesn't fail to notice how many make their way through the hall of the temple as they wait. Watching the pale Emperor-to-be. Watching the empty ring of scorched stone.

He doesn't want to think how it might go, if the one they watch for finally fails to return. Such a slim hope to hang a world upon.

He doesn't fail to notice how many hands close on swords when the air rips wide open. He almost fails to notice the figure who appears within that blackened ring. The amulet in her hand draws all eyes like flame.


	8. Interlude: Breathe

**Breathe**

The air in the temple atop the mountains is almost festive. Finally, after so long, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it is hard to remember that the battle is not quite yet won.

It is a little like remembering, of a sudden, how to breathe.

The revelry is not overt. There is no song, no dance, but the flurry of preparations for the journey from temple to capital carry only a little of the grim resolve that marked the past weeks.

Only three stand aloof, and even then there is a gleam of hope.


	9. Beast

**Beast**

They tell him to go straight to the Temple of the One. He refuses; he wants to do this right.

He has a moment to regret that, but the press for the temple district that follows leaves little time to dwell.

The great figure looming above the buildings drives away all thought, leaving only a void into which despair rushes like the incoming tide.

It's too late.

The fierce whisper beside him kindles something like madness. He can think of one last move. Just one.

As he tells them where he needs to be, he prays they will forgive him.


	10. Blood

**Blood**

The city is madness. For a moment, she's uncertain whether she stands on Nirn or Oblivion.

She decides it's time to change the rules.

He starts as her hand closes around his and she throws up an illusion spell to mask them from sight. Even so hidden, they barely make it.

Only then does he explain.

Arguments scream in her mind, but she traps them behind clenched teeth. She presses his hand, and wishes him strength. Not luck; that had deserted them both long ago.

She throws up one arm to keep from going blind as the dragon claims him.


	11. Dragon

**Dragon**

It's only when the Daedric prince rips the roof from the temple that he's sure they'd made it. He doesn't even have a moment to be impressed before the sky erupts in a blaze of flame and gold and glory.

Everything falters, then resumes at an even more frantic pace.

For a battle to save a world, it doesn't take long. The daedra vanish with their lord. They might have never been, if not for the ruins. And the dragon, now stone.

That last is all he needs to know, and he's already mourning as he races for the temple.


	12. Interlude: Flow

**Flow**

Word ripples outward, until even those who had fled in the first terrifying instant have heard: it's over, finally over. The flow of messengers along the roads is thick enough there's scarcely room for the bandits. Within two days, there's no one in Cyrodiil who doesn't know the story.

Within the week, there's no one in the entire Empire.

Inside the capital, the revelry threatens to be almost as destructive as the fighting had been. After months of terror, the sudden relief is a little like insanity.

It's a long while before the true depth of the cost sinks in.


	13. Rain

**Rain**

The festivities and speeches are not celebrations for her, but things to be endured. She does, telling herself all the while that she does not fault them for their relief, for thinking of the sacrifice in terms of Emperor and Empire.

They did not know the man, so she tries to convince herself not to resent them for failing to mourn him.

She endures being paraded about as Champion, a bauble for a suddenly fragile state, and tends her grief in private.

And then one day it is too much, and she slips away under the cover of the rain.


	14. Remnants

**Remnants**

He sees her often in public, standing still and solemn and silent beside Ocato. She'd never been still before, and it is jarring.

He seeks her out in private, now and then, and there she is a little more natural. If she shares her grief but rarely, at least she is willing to share her memories.

He is the one to find her room empty, though a less practiced eye would hardly notice. She takes little with her when she goes. He stays behind, and works to rebuild what is lost. Each day, he feels his age more and more.


	15. Memento

**Memento**

Every year on the same day, there are flowers laid at the dragon's feet. No one ever sees who brings them.

After a time, every year on the same day there are flowers also laid on a grave along Green Emperor Way. No one ever sees who brings those, either.

It is not for lack of trying.

Every year on the same day, the watchers turn away for an instant, doze for an instant, and the flowers are there. Some whisper about magic, or ghosts.

And then, one year, that day comes, and there are no flowers left at all.


End file.
